


Four a.m.

by RedChucks



Category: Nathan Barley (TV)
Genre: Depression, Implied Suicide Attempt, M/M, blood mention, but not as bad as it seems I promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 15:06:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15197387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedChucks/pseuds/RedChucks
Summary: Dan gets a text and heads to the roof.





	Four a.m.

It’s four a.m., a time that Dan likes to think is an insult to reality and sensible, normal, people with good jobs and impulse control and properly wired brains, because surely it isn’t real. Four a.m. is a world all of its own, like the full body experience of running your tongue across your unwashed teeth, disturbing and familiar in the worst way.

Four a.m., the hour of insomniacs, junkies, demons, and poor sods with jobs that nobody wants or wants to talk about. And Dan.

Dan’s not a morning person, a fact which is so ingrained in who he is that people can just tell by looking at him these days. Dan appreciates that, it saves time. He hates getting up in the morning with a passion that he can’t seem to muster for much else in his life, but he hates the sensible real world as well, in a quieter, more broken sort of way, and so here he is, giving the world the finger and sitting on a rooftop at four-fucking-a.m.

He feels like shit, barely awake, wth a headache behind his cheekbones that he knows is going to follow him around for the next day at least, and he’s aware that from the outside looking in at this situation, it seems a bit mental. But Dan knows why he’s here, knows why he needs to be here, knows it’s necessary, because when it’s been him straddling the ledge, torn between the urge to jump and the need for someone to tell him to hold on, Jones has been there for him. He can’t not return the favour.

  
_‘On roof. Please come?’_

  
Dan’s just relieved the text woke him and that he made it up here in time. He’s terrified that one day he’ll sleep through it. But he’s here this time, he’s made it, and Jones is looking at him through his ragged hair with a pained desperation that Dan feels to his core.

“You came,” he whispers. “Didn’t think you’d come. You got well shit faced tonight. Thought this was gonna be it.”

It’s more words than Jones usually says in one go without a musical backing so Dan holds his tongue and doesn’t point out that if Jones really thought that tonight was the night he wouldn’t have sent a message telling Dan he was on the roof.

“I’ll always come,” he lies instead, and watches as Jones gives him that sad, understanding smile, acknowledging the untruth for what it is.

The first time he’d given Dan that look Dan had genuinely worried that he was having a heart attack for how intense the pain in his chest was, but he’s used to it now. It doesn’t hurt any less but these days he recognises it for what it is, even if he refuses to admit in words (even in his head) that it’s love. Jones doesn’t say it aloud either but he gives Dan these looks and his eyes fair glow with it and Dan knows. Jones makes his music and Dan knows. And when Jones presses his forehead to Dan’s sternum with the kind of force that can’t be misunderstood, and Dan holds Jones tight like he’s terrified of losing his footing and slipping from the earth in those silent, painful hours, they both know. Just like they both know how it’ll end. But not tonight.

Dan sits carefully on the crumbling brick of the roof’s edge and holds his hand out, waiting for Jones to come to a decision because he looks more desperate than normal and Dan doesn’t want to force him to live if he can’t, and doesn’t want to spook him with any sudden movements. He won’t survive if Jones jumps. Jones barely survived Dan’s jump out of the Trashbat window, but he doesn’t want to guilt Jones in to staying if he can’t, if this really is it.

“Just real tired of nightmares, Dan,” Jones sighs eventually, his hands gripping the stone. Dan can see where the rough brick has cut in to the skin of his palms in ways that will cause Jones pain at his decks for days but he tries not think of that. At least if he’s holding the wall he won’t fall accidentally.

“Your mum again?” he asks softly, watching the way Jones’ chest heaves. They should both quit smoking he thinks out of nowhere. Jones’ lungs are shit as it is and nothing makes a panic attack build faster than a genuine inability to breathe (he knows that full well from personal experience) but it’s not really something to bring up just now so instead he takes deep, steady, breaths and watches to see whether Jones will start mirroring the action.

“Yeah. My mum. Ain’t it always?” Jones snorts harshly, but he’s matching Dan breath for breath, rocking gently, calming slowly.

Dan recognises that behaviour as well. At first he’d been concerned but he knows now that when it’s him who’s distressed he rubs things between his fingers - cigarettes, fabric, Jones’ hair - and for Jones it’s rocking, like his body is trying to get back in sync with some rhythm only he can hear. The worst thing to do is to try and make him stop, Dan knows, but when Jones does it at times like this, on a ledge, one leg dangling out in the darkness, it still scares him.

“Well the good news is,” Dan says carefully, trying to measure his words against Jones’ mental state. “She’s definitely still dead.”

Jones snorts again but he gifts Dan with a fleeting smile, one that says he appreciates Dan’s honesty and lack of sentimentality.

“Good thing about this spot,” he agrees softly. “We’ll definitely see any zombies coming. My mum. Your dad. They ever get outta Hell, we’ll be ready, yeah?”

Dan wonders if he should try to unpack some of what Jones has told him about his mum but decides it can wait for another time, when it’s not four a.m. and freezing. Those memories will keep. Dan knows how much it costs Jones to live like he doesn’t have a closet full of skeletons, like his low word count is on account of his IQ and not his childhood. He doesn’t want to rock that boat when he’s not sure he’ll be able to calm it again.

Dan flexes his fingers and watches as Jones eyes flicker at the movement and focus on the still outstretched palm.

“Dan?” he asks, sounding too sweet and young, forcing Dan to look away and out across the ugly city.

“They’re not in Hell, Jones,” he says, surprising even himself at the bitterness on his tongue. “I don’t believe in any of that shit. Their souls aren’t being tormented somewhere, like they deserve, they’re just gone. Blown out like smoke before their nasty corpses hit the dirt, Jones. They’re nothing. Dust and worm shit, nothing more.”

He almost falls off the damn roof himself when Jones suddenly grasps his hand but he catches his balance and grips Jones’ stubby fingers hard, not caring that he can feel blood squelch between them, sticking their palms together.

“Thanks, Dan,” Jones grins, broader this time, fired by that cheekiness that Dan falls in love with every single time it appears.

Dan blinks at that. He’s not sure he’s done anything worthy of such a thank you, of such adoration, but he nods and grunts and holds Jones’ hand even tighter. If they fall now, he thinks, at least they’ll go down together.

The sun hasn’t started to lighten the sky yet. If anything it feels darker than it realistically ever should, like the world has spun out of orbit without anyone noticing, like the sun rise isn’t coming at all, like the darkness has started to bleed in to the very fabric of the world. Dan likes it more than he thinks he should.

“You want to head back in?”

“Nah,” Jones whispers. “Not just yet. I actually... I quite like it up here, ya know?”

Dan nods again and brings Jones knuckles up to his lips, kissing them before he can overthink the action and bail.

“Stay as long as you want, Jonesy. I’ll be here.”

And this time it’s true and Jones smiles at him in a way that makes his heart twist and ache and burst within his chest. His eyes look less wild now. The desperation burned away to tired embers. Tomorrow (or later today, Dan supposes) Jones will wake up from whatever restless sleep he’s been able to manage, stuck in a depression that even Dan can’t match, and it will be hard to carry on, but they both know that that too will pass, that soon enough it’ll be Dan texting from the roof, desperate to jump and desperate to be talked down. It’s just the way things are, the way things will always be as far as Dan can see, but for now it’s four a.m. and they’re both alive and huddled together on the crumbling roof, and Dan feels better than he thinks he has a right to, with Jones’ bloody hand in his and the painful ache of love thudding in his heart.


End file.
